The invention relates to a household appliance, having a food treatment chamber, which has a loading opening that can be closed by a door, and at least one camera for observing the food treatment chamber through a viewing window. The invention can be applied particularly advantageously to microwave appliances and combined oven/microwave appliances.
A customer buying a typical household food treatment appliance generally wants to be able to see the progress of a food treatment process (e.g. a roasting, baking or cooking process) in a food treatment chamber (e.g. in a cooking chamber such as an oven). To this end a door, which can close a loading opening of the food treatment chamber, frequently has a viewing region with a large front pane of glass. One disadvantage of this is that more energy is lost through the front pane of glass than through other walls of the food treatment chamber with better thermal insulation.
To minimize energy consumption the viewing region can be omitted so that said region can be more effectively insulated. So that the user can still monitor the treatment process taking place in the food treatment chamber, a camera is incorporated in the appliance, observing or monitoring the food treatment chamber continuously. The acquired images are displayed on a screen of the appliance. This allows the customer to observe the food treatment chamber and control the treatment process as usual, influencing it as required by changing the oven settings.
With microwave appliances the problem arises that the camera and associated electronics cannot be exposed to microwave radiation as this may impair their function or they may even be destroyed by the microwave radiation.